Shabana Azmi , the Activist, the Darling of Underclasses and the Actor
Palash Biswas
(c/o Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 033-25659551- R)
The news fills my heart with joy as we the Indians concerned with underclasses do love her as she is an activist who fights for the underclasses, persecuted by the ruling classes of this subcontinent. Yes,Versatile actress and noted social activist Shabana Azmi received the International Gandhi Peace Prize in London for her exemplary work for underprivileged women, especially in the slums of Mumbai through her movement 'Nivara Hakk'. The actor's struggle for slum dwellers has now resulted in the construction of 30,000 homes under a tripartite agreement among the charity, a private builder and the Maharashtra government.
Actor and social activist Vanessa Redgrave, who bestowed on Shabana the prestigious award, said Shabana was a special person and the world desperately needs people like her.
The Gandhi Foundation, presided over by Gandhi director Sir Richard Attenborough, will celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Mahatma's birth in 2009.
She is the first Indian to be honoured with this award.She was given the award for her struggle adopting Gandhian means, to ensure the rehabilitation of displaced slum dwellers in Mumbai at a time when India is rediscovering the voice and ways of the Father of the Nation. "We need to look at the model of development that we are following. It cannot progress at the cost of many, benefiting only a few," said Azmi.
It's in real life, not the movies, where SHABANA AZMI plays her biggest part—as a crusader against injustice. When I saw her in Shyam Benegal`s film `Ankur’, we knew her just as the highprofile daughter of Kaifi and shaukat Azmi. Since then she has identified with all the people`s movement in India. There may be many more great actresses in the history of Indian cinema, but the role she plays out of reel life may not be compared with others. She along with Smita Patil deglamourized the traditional female lead on screen and upheld the identity of dalit woman in general.Her passion is incontrovertible. Her ego can easily tend toward excessive. Her talent keeps her famous, and her pulchritude made her that way. In Bollywood, she tired of formulaic fare and is one of the few marquee actresses willing to risk reputation to take adventurous roles in experimental films. Her portrayal of a lonely woman who falls in love with her sister-in-law in Deepa Mehta's 1998 film Fire sparked threats of a ban by censors and violent protests by fundamentalists enraged at the depiction of lesbianism in middle-class India.
We saw her with others coming to Meerut by foot from New delhi in protest of Maliyana massacres in the later part of eighties. At that time , I was in Meerut. I may not forget the occassion as it was the last meeting with Shankar Guha Niyogi, the murdered leader of Chhattishgarh Mukti Morcha.Since then, we have seen her active everywhere whenever human and civil rights are violeted.Azmi's activism has angered both Hindu and Muslim radicals as well as a variety of vested interests. But she doesn't care. "I am a daughter, a wife, a mother, a woman, an actress, an Indian and a Muslim," she says. "Each of those identities is important to me." And she doesn't intend to let anyone forget it.
The actor who was in UK to accept the award, questioned the use of the veil by women in Islam, in a country where the veil has attracted a lot of attention in the recent weeks.The veil is debated upon as a symbol of the separateness and ghettoisation of the Muslim community.
Shabana Azmi became the first Indian recipient of the International Gandhi Peace Prize in the House of Commons, clearly a mark of the increasing recognition Indians are getting on the international stage. She is humbled by the honour whose previous recipients include the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others.''It is a great honour that somehow my name can be linked to Mahatma Gandhi,'' she added.
Speaking on non-violence, the actor said, ''Violence should be discarded not just on high moral ground but on the reality that it does not work. It only spirals downwards. The greatest lesson from the father of the nation is that he was capable of standing up against an adversary, while recognising his rights.''
Azmi, who was described by no less than a person Satyajit Ray, as the finest dramatic actress of India, told PTI "I am honoured at being chosen for such an outstanding award, whose previous recipients included the Dalai Lama."She said she was happy that her involvement for rehabilitation of slum dwellers had borne fruit. At least 13,000 slum dwellers have been rehabilitated owing to her effort.
She has unequivocally condemned and fought against religious fundamentalism, on hundreds of occasions from different platforms. She has never lagged behind in any endeavour to normalise matters, whenever communal amity and peace is held to ransom by anti-social elements. Shabana Azmi is always at the forefront in fight for a just cause whether it is for the cause of slum dwellers of Mumbai or for alleviation of those suffering from AIDS.
As an actress, may be Shabana is past her prime. But as a champion of progressive ideas, national integrity, peace and harmony she has many more miles to traverse. We wish her a long life so that she keeps on serving the society with the ardour, so inherently characteristic of her.
Azmi has starred in some of the greatest Indian films like Ankur, Mandi, Arth, Khandar, Paar, Sparsh, Godmother and Tehzeeb.
Azmi is already the recipient of the National Award for Best Actress five times, which includes receiving the coveted gong thrice in a row from 1983-85 for her roles in the films Arth, Khandar and Paar. Her other achievements include the Filmfare Award for Best Actress three times and the Filmfare Life Time Achievement Award.
She has also received the prestigious Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum - Davos, 2006 for her contributions in the field of culture.
But the measure of Shabana Azmi's humanity is none of those things. It is her willingness to say, simply, what others are frightened of saying. "The trouble," says Azmi, "is that I can never keep quiet." That volubility has indeed caused her problems, but it's also made the 51-year-old Indian actress an outspoken secular hero espousing tolerance in a state riven by religious conflict.
It should be very clear that it's not her movie roles that have made her a hero for modern India. She has consistently—and loudly—railed against real-world injustice. Early in her career, she took up the cause of slum dwellers in Bombay—where she lives—who had been ruthlessly evicted by municipal authorities. Since 1993, appalled by the then bloody riots between Muslims and Hindus, Azmi, a Muslim, has become a forceful critic of communalism and a tireless crusader to end religious extremism.
Azmi does not just fight for her co-religionists. In fact, her greatest battle has been against fundamentalist Islamic leaders. Post-Sept. 11, Azmi was among the first in the country to publicly criticize militant Islam. When the imam of Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, said Indian Muslims should join the jihad in Afghanistan, Azmi urged him to go—alone. Her outburst encouraged other Muslim moderates to step forward and counsel tolerance.
Shabana Azmi is the resurgent face of feminism of modern India. It is a different matter that she is equally acclaimed for her brilliance on the celluloid. Her social activism and the courage to call a spade a spade, has made her a cut above the rest, of the usual lot of Bollywood stars. Shabana’s striking countenance that fits into a vast spectrum of roles; coupled with her unmatched prowess, to emote and empathise with versatile characters, has made her hold sway on a genre of cinema for three decades. She is the pioneer of parallel movement in the Indian cinema and is the undisputed monarch of her territory. It is highly unlikely that times shall find her an heir, to carry forward her prolific legacy.
Shabana is quoted by Hindu, "What worries me is that so many women are coming into television as directors and writers and still there is no change. It's because they are coming with a different agenda, propelled not by women's empowerment but by market forces."
A part of the article published by Hindu as follows:
`BEING AN actress, you would think, would be a self-absorbing thing, leaving little time to dwell on things outside yourself. That too if you are an actress who has set such standards of performance that no treatise on Indian cinema would be complete without a reference to you. But not so for Shabana Azmi. Parliamentarian, goodwill ambassador to the UNFPA and one of the most vocal and visible faces of activism in India, Shabana Azmi's walk from actress nonpareil to activist began more than a decade ago when she joined hands with film-maker, Anand Patwardhan, to raise her voice on behalf of the slum dwellers, who in cities like Mumbai constitute over 70 per cent of the population and yet have no rights as citizens. With Nivara Haq Samiti, Shabana fought — and continues to fight for the past 16 years. As she puts it, ``if these people ever decide to go on strike, the cities will come to a grinding halt.''
Since then, Shabana has championed many causes — some of the most visible being her fight against the suppression of creative expression and her subsequent brush with the saffron brigade when she was to star in Deepa Mehta's ``Water." (Her controversial role in Mehta's earlier film, ``Fire'' had already set the tone of that debate!)
And more recently, she became the voice of the liberal Muslim and was in the eye of a storm when she suggested that Imam Bukhari should be airdropped in Afghanistan for supporting the Taliban so that he could fight for them. The Imam's insulting rejoinder — that too on national television — evoked a shocked response across the country and in Parliament, but did not deter a dignified Shabana who said that it only went to show the Imam for what he was...
Shabana Azmi. Celebrity with a cause (several, actually). Incredibly articulate, passionately committed, with a rare felicity with sound bytes; all these combined with liberal dollops of politically correct glamour. Naturally she was one of the main draws at a recent theatre festival in Mysore. The history books controversy was just freshly hatched, the festival's theme was one dear to her heart — the state of the contemporary Indian woman — and Shabana was in full sail...
Talking to Shabana Azmi is like sailing down a river. All you can do is flow with the current, strong, sure, impatient if you interrupt or resist, taking you inexorably downstream...”
Here is an interview:
On women's empowerment, Shabana has this to say:
``We can't talk about empowering women without redefining the concept of power. To me, power is legitimate authority rather than something that you use against another section of society in order to control it and be more powerful. It is about the sharing of power.
Empowerment has to happen from within, from women themselves. If people step in from outside saying, "We will empower," they can do nothing. Empowerment is facilitating, encouraging women to articulate their needs, about which they are already very clear.
The problem with the empowerment of women in India is...
Women's empowerment without two things is impossible.
The first is education — and it's not just enough to make women literate. We have to give them education that will shape and change their outlook. Look at the kind of education that women get today — full of gender stereotyping and with a strong communal bias. This is dangerous. We need to change that and educate the woman to re-define herself and her role in society.
The second is economic independence. Again it is not enough for the woman to earn money, she must also have the right to spend it. We still have working women having to ask their mothers-in-law permission to buy a sari. Empowerment is not just the right to earn, but the right to spend as well...
So, what should be the first move?
First, we must educate the girl child. Secondly, women must have access to health care. Health is on nobody's agenda and women's health even less so. What really pains me is that 54 years after independence, we still haven't been able to provide safe motherhood in India and 70 per cent of maternal deaths are entirely preventable.
So, is the empowerment of Indian women really happening? What about places like U.P. and Bihar?
A lot is happening. Maybe not as rapidly as we'd like it to, but it's happening all the same. Obviously it's going to happen unequally because of the differences in social development between States. But that's no reason to despair at all. The wonderful part is that the women's movement in India has developed its own indigenous model where the focus is on empowering women in groups rather than individually as is the Western focus.
The ideas that are going to revolutionise women's movement...
Micro credit. It's shaking traditional family structures because suddenly it is the woman who has access to money and funding and that forces society to look again at who she is and what she stands for... That is why movements like SEWA are so powerful. They empower women not just to earn money but also to manage it themselves.
The Panchayati Raj. When women become sarpanchs, they are being placed at the centre of group development units and that becomes very empowering. It's interesting to see how different the issues are for women sarpanchs versus the male ones. The women want access to water, to firewood and schools for their children, whereas the men want to build community centres — brick and mortar things.
On the regressive stereotyping of women in prime time television serials and why they are so popular...
What worries me is that so many women are coming into television as directors and writers and still there is no change. It's because they are coming with a different agenda, propelled not by women's empowerment but by market forces.
On social change...
I truly believe that change can only occur if society's action complements government action. It's all very well to blame the State, but are you with the problem or are you with the solution? I want to be part of the solution and I'll do anything for that...
Shabana Azmi made her debut in Shayam Benegal’s Ankur (1972). The film paid her rich dividends. Ankur not only became a harbinger of the parallel cinema, but also fetched her the first National Award. Later she went on to win another four – a feat unparalleled in the annals of film industry. Eight years and fifteen films after her debut, she showcased her greatest award winning performance in Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth (1982). Arth brought her yet another National Award and her first Filmfare award. It also placed her firmly in the orbit of the galaxy of film stars. She played a castaway wife, who had the mettle to take on the world. An equally brilliant performance by her illustrious co-star, the late Smita Patil, goaded Shabana to churn out her best. The rest of the three National Awards came from Khandar (1984), Paar (1985) and Godmother (1999). In Doosri Dulhan (1982), she played a prostitute to the hilt - the typical pan chewing and curse-spewing courtesan, who tries to seduce a millionaire out in search of a womb to father his child.
In the eighties, she acted in a large number of films. In her other two most popular films, like Swami (77) and Apne Paraye (80), based upon Saratchandra Chatterjee novels, she plays “the strong, traditional woman” who gracefully overcomes the infirmities associated with womanhood. Her second Filmfare award came from Bhavana. Swami won her the third Filmfare award for Best Actress. Masoom (1983), Khamosh (1985), Krishna (1987), Ek Admi (1988), and Disha (1990) moulded her image as an intelligent, responsible and thinking actress.
In the Immaculate Conception (1992), an English trans-cultural drama of Jamil Dehlvi, she played Samira- a Pakistani lady opposite James Wilby. The Son of Pink Panther directed by Blake Edwards; Rolland Joeff’s City of Joy; Nicholas Klotz’s The Bengali Night co -starred with John Hurt and Hugh Grant and John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka (1988), all won her immense International acclaim.
It stands to her credit that she can flit from art roles to a popular jean wearing Bollywood glam girl with ease. Her appreciable performances in Amar Akbar Anthony (1976) and Fakira (1978) bear ample testimony to this fact. Shabana, the adventurist came to fore, in her foray into the controversial subject like lesbianism, in Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996). In Mrityudand (1997), she picturised a barren woman who warms up to a socially inferior partner. To add further versatility to her profile, she played a witch in Vishal Bharadwaj’s horror flick- Makdi (2002). Lately, she figured in Khalid Mohamed’s Tehzeeb and easily overshadowed the skimpily clad co- artists.
Shabana, the actress of all seasons was included in the august jury of International Film Festivals held at Cairo and Montreal.
Shabana is married to an equally famous poet-lyricist and screenwriter husband Javed Akhtar. The Government of India honoured Shabana, a veteran of over hundred films with Padam Shri award in 1998. She was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, as a Member of Parliament by the President of India, an honour bestowed upon people who have attained excellence in their respective fields. She also has the distinction of holding the coveted post of United Nations Ambassador of Goodwill on Population and Development.
